


Easy, Cheesy

by crookedcig



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Derek is grumpy, M/M, Pining, Promise, Sheriff's name is Noah, and eventually they fall in love, and it's disgustingly cute, and then they meet, and then they snark at each other, and there is a happy ending, because I decided to throw Jeff Davis a bone, but it gets resolved, canon compliant past deaths, derek sets his kitchen on fire, eyebrows as communication devices, stiles is a fire fighter, there is some pining, there's a little teeny gilmore girls crossover thing happening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9793253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedcig/pseuds/crookedcig
Summary: Derek sets his kitchen on fire (a little bit).  Stiles is a firefighter called to the scene.  Derek communicates his anger with eyebrows alone, and Stiles falls in lust.  Slowly, they both fall in more than that.aka what happens when I try to write how their lives would be different if Laura had refused to ever go back to California.First 5 chapters are totally rated E for Everyone.  Will get darker and they will bone.





	1. Accountability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek's kitchen catches on fire (a little) and Stiles won't leave him alone.
> 
> (Chapter title is based on a fun piece of first responder jargon: all first responders have to check in with an accountability officer or incident commander at a scene and have to wait to be formally released.)

“Do I even want to know?”It’s not unusual to see Boyd out at his calls, but Stiles isn’t exactly used to seeing the EMT walking away from the scene before Stiles himself has even seen it.The big man shrugged one shoulder and carefully pushed his bag back into its neat little compartment, before turning and looking at the house he’d just left.Arms crossed over his chest, it looked like he was about to say something, which had Stiles perking up because generally speaking when Boyd said something, it was worth listening to.

“Fuckin’ idiot’s having a freakout all by his lonesome,” Erica spat the words out, looking every bit as annoyed as she usually did on late night calls like this, her dark blue uniform wrinkled and her hair falling out of the loose knot she kept it in at the back of her skull.Hers was the only squad car in the little pool of emergency vehicles that were currently blocking traffic and quietly spinning down their lights and pulling away now that the immediate threat is over.

“Why Boyd, your voice sounds so different today?Did you catch ill?”Voice dripping with sarcasm, Stiles didn’t quite manage to dodge Erica’s lazy slap.He chose to blame it on his boots.And suspenders.The whole uniform, really, it slowed you down jut enough to get smacked in the back of the head by a pissy cop, even if you were normally faster than her.At least he got a grin and a quiet chuckle out of Boyd.

“She’s right.”Boyd’s voice was still curling tightly with good humor when he finally spoke, and Erica had the gall to stick her tongue out at Stiles before leaning up to steal a kiss from the handsome EMT.“He’s sitting in the bathroom freaking out.”That had Stiles pausing, his jacket and helmet off but his attention swinging back around to the open front door not thirty feet away.

“And no one is staying in there with him?”It wasn’t like he was a bleeding heart or something.You don’t work as a fire fighter this long, let alone be a sheriff’s kid, without finding a healthy ‘give no fucks’ line in the sand.But a really minor house fire that resulted in the single occupant freaking out all alone?That raised a little red flag in the back of his brain.

“He’s not going into shock.Best I can tell, he’s having a panic attack.But he wouldn’t let me near him.Looked like he was going to rip the throat out of one of your buddies that walked by.”Shrugging, Boyd glanced at the window and frowned a little bit.“He’s not injured physically.And I can’t stick around while the incident commander is pull--“ Stiles was already dumping his jacket and helmet onto the back of the bus and thumping towards the house, which had Boyd sighing softly.Erica was the one to say mean things about him while he was just barely still in earshot.Not that it had ever stopped him before, hearing her mutter nasty shit in a language he only half understood but was fully aware was targeted at him.

The house was neat and clean, besides the mess of char and sodium bicarbonate all over the microwave and the mud that emergency services had tracked in.There were shelves of books pretty much…everywhere, even in the kitchen, which alarmed Stiles more for the sake of splatter zones than open flames.Which he would deny to his last breath, given his profession.It took a little bit of hunting to find the bathroom, with the sunny yellow paint job and the very quietly freaking out man sitting in the tub, right where Boyd had promised.The very handsome very quietly freaking out man.Very handsome.Shit.Job, right.

“Hey.”The man flinched like Stiles had slapped him, which didn’t seem super promising, but he forged head because his middle name was foolhardy.“I hear you’re not having an easy time of it.” That, at least, earned him a dry, humorless snort.“I dunno why you wouldn’t let Boyd in here, he’s better at this shit than most people, but especially me.”After a moment of hesitation, Stiles flopped to sit down next to the tub, feeling every inch of sticky, drying sweat on his skin and feeling pretty fucking gross for it.

When he glanced at the homeowner again, Stiles was confronted with a pair of eyes that could not be.They didn’t make eyes in that color, not human ones anyway.They were all sea foam green and blue and gold and that was just unfair, that a man this devastatingly handsome have big beautiful eyes, too.God was laughing. Something complicated was happening with the eyes and the thick black eyebrows over them, doing this weird little dance before going blank and flat and…maybe angry?

“Get out,” growled the guy.Growling was definitely the only word to describe the noise, rattling in his chest and bouncing up his throat and Stiles nearly did just that, scooting away in a very human reaction to danger.But again.Firefighter.Pretty used to running into danger, instead.

“Dude, you are pretty clearly not ok right now, and it’s not really my style to bail on somebody who’s not ok.Sort of in the job description, though I still argue that Boyd would be much better at this than I am.”Homeowner guy was staring at his chest, looking like he wanted to set it on fire with his eyes, and there was a very particular way he was scowling that should have been frightening, but really just made Stiles sort of sad.It took a second to realize he was glaring at the logo on his chest, Sacramento Fire Department emblazoned proudly over his heart.“You got something against fire fighters in particular, or is my personal brand of charm that you’re not a fan of?” That appeared to grab the other man’s attention, which Stiles almost regretted given just how alarming it was to be pinned by nonsense eyes.

“Firefighters in particular.”There was no heat in the words, no real malice.Just sort of dry resignation, which was somehow worse.“Now get out.”

It wasn’t a battle of wills as silence fell between them.There was no doubt that the homeowner would win, it was right there in the moniker.But Stiles’s other middle name was stubborn and he still wasn’t ok with the way the other man looked right on the edge of doing something really stupid out of panic and maybe guilt. 

“Ok.I’m gonna write my number down—“ fishing in his pockets, Stiles grunted out some frustration and frowned.“I’m gonna write my number down on something in the kitchen.And when you’re ready to apologize for being a grumpy Gus and let me know you’re ok, feel free to text.Cool?”If anything, the death-glare intensified.“Cool.I’ll just…go then.” 

Heaving up to his feet, Stiles gave the other man a lame little wave and stomped out to the kitchen, feeling even more conspicuous in his gear than he had on the way in.There was a little pad of paper on the fridge and a pen attached by a string.It was sort of charming, and Stiles had a flash of imagining the homeowner (who would really need to get a name soon) making his grocery list for the week with neat little marks.Scribbling his name and cellphone number down before beelining for the front door just in time to see Boyd considering dumping his stuff in a ditch, Stiles did his very best not to think about what on earth had made him want to leave his number for a guy that clearly didn’t want him around.

Besides, you know, the crazy eyes.And the jaw that could cut steak.

He always did have a soft spot for the broken ones.

 

.*.

 

_You didn’t need to come in, let alone leave your number._

 

It was 3:17 in the morning and Stiles was doing his best to sleep when his phone buzzed with a new text message.

 

_Your handwriting is terrible. I can’t even read your name._

 

Microwave fire guy.Two days late and in the middle of what should have been his night off to sleep, but Stiles found it really hard to complain.

 

**It’s Stiles.And hi.**

_Why did you leave your number?_

**Because you looked like you needed a friend and I am the best at friending.A+I can get a report card from my BFF Scott to prove it.**

_My microwave caught fire, I didn’t get dumped at prom._

**Are friends and adulthood mutually exclusive in your world, dude?**

_No, but comforting a perfect stranger because he had a bad night isn’t exactly the sort of thing adults do._

 

Considering this for a moment, Stiles frowned and shook his head.

 

**No offense man, but if that’s the lesson you took away you had some fucking terrible adults in your life at an impressionable age.**

 

There was a delay just long enough for Stiles to wonder if he’d said exactly the wrong thing before his phone buzzed again, yanking him out of the game of Candy Crush he’d been playing with a start.

 

_I can’t argue that point._

 

Win.

 

**Can I get your name now, since it’s really inconvenient to think of you as “the homeowner” or “dude with the eyebrows” all the time.**

_Derek.Though I would probably respond to Eyebrows._

 

So he did have a sense of humor.Double win.

 

**So how are you doing, Derek-Eyebrows?**

_My kitchen is fine._

**Not what I asked.**

_I’m fine, too._

**You gonna tell me about the freak out the other night?**

_No._

**Fair enough.I’m going to tell you about this cute kitten I got to save from a storm drain today.She tried to claw my eyes out after I got her unstuck.**

_Sounds like you deserved it._

**You’ve got a really weird sense of gratitude, man.**

_True._

**So what are you going to do in exchange for my valiant efforts to save you from a microwave fire?Key my car?**

 

Another delay that had Stiles’s heart beating in his throat.

 

_You left one of your gloves here.I could come drop it off, but I don’t know which firehouse you work at._

**That’s where it ran off to.I’m at #8, near CSU.I can come pick it up, if that’s easier?**

_I’ll be there tomorrow._

_Today, rather._

**Cool cool cool.I work the day shift, so I might be a zombie if I don’t get any sleep between now and then.**

_Good night._

**You too, Derek.**

 

So that had gone…better than it could have.And if nothing else, Stiles at least had a name to go with the impossibly pretty face.Not to mention the very fleeting hope that Derek had fallen in lust and was gonna come make out with him in a storage closet or something while he was on the clock in….less than six hours.Shit, he needed some sleep.


	2. Accelerant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek comes to return Stiles's glove. Stiles gets more besotted, and manages to get a date.

Halfway through what was quiet possibly the dullest shift of his entire life, Stiles found himself cooking lunch for everyone instead of cleaning the bathrooms, more because Mike was the worst cook in the entire house than because he was a good friend.Thank goodness for flexible chore wheels.Just about finished with the Stilinski Special Chili, Stiles noticed that there wasn’t the usual line out the kitchen waiting for him to wrap it up and start doling out the grub.That was weird.The guys loved his chili, and they especially loved that he was pretty much incapable of cooking without making garlic bread to go on the side.

A quick poke of his head out into the hall revealed nobody was visible.Setting the flame under his chili to simmer and covering it with a lid that definitely did not go with the pot, Stiles wandered out into the firehouse, absently humming under his breath.He found the rest of his shift huddled around one of the windows that faced the street, all but crawling on each other to see something.

“She better be pretty hot guys, or I’m never making you chili again, just out of spite.”Using his sharp elbows to his advantage, much to the consternation and annoyance of his colleagues, Stiles managed to get to the window without too much trouble.Outside wasn’t, as he’d expected, a beautiful woman.But there was a very beautiful, very angry looking man standing at the corner, pacing towards the station before hitting some sort of invisible line in the sidewalk and turning back around to pace away.It took a few repetitions of this for Stiles to shake himself out of his stupor, realizing he should probably go rescue Derek from whatever meltdown he was having this time.“Somebody kept an eye on the pot and stir it every once in a while for me, huh?”Bolting for the stairs, it occurred to him to add at the last minute “Don’t let it be Mike!” which prompted just enough laughter to make him grin.

By the time he reached the pavement, huffing out a soft breath at the weird shift from climate-controlled to climate-way-out-of-whack, Stiles had to remind himself to slow down and not approach Derek at a brisk jog.Because that would probably look pretty aggressive.Aiming for something like a mosey and mostly succeeding, he approached the other man and waved a little bit, hoping his smile looked disarming. 

“Hey, dude.You got a magnetism problem with the station?”A jerk of his thumb over his shoulder indicated the station and Stiles rocked forward onto the balls of his feet.Derek didn’t look nearly as amused as he’d hoped and stood there awkwardly for a moment before fishing a glove out of his pocket and thrusting it at Stiles.

“Nice apron.”It took Stiles a minute to realize Derek was talking to him, with those impossible eyes darting looking pretty much anywhere but at Stiles.Glancing down, he felt his face go a little hot when he realized he was still wearing the apron that was printed with Wonder Woman’s torso and thighs. 

“Thanks.I like to think Diana Prince would appreciate my chili just as much as the guys do.”Stiles nearly crowed with delight when he saw a smile tug at Derek’s mouth before it smoothed away again, almost too fast to catch.Tucking his glove into the apron string, Stiles considered for a moment.“You’re welcome to come in and have some with us.I’ve been told my cooking is life changing.”A beat.“In the good way.”

Before the words were even all the way out of his mouth, Derek was shaking his head.Stiles tried really hard to pretend it didn’t hurt his feelings a lot more than it should for two theoretical strangers.Near strangers.Whatever.

“I’m meeting my sister for lunch.”That was a pretty good excuse, even if it did make Derek’s face go all flat and emotionless again.“But thanks.Maybe later.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”It broke Stiles’s heart a little bit when Derek looked genuinely surprised, like he’d just been trying to offer Stiles an out and didn’t think the other man was serious.“We could to dinner pretty much any time.Or if you can wait until Tuesday, that’s when my weekend starts.I heard the new fusion place downtown is terrible, we could start there and end up at a greasy diner eating burgers when we hate it?”

Oh…oh if that was the way Derek really smiled then Stiles was in a lot more trouble than he’d originally thought.It was slow and shy and oh fuck he had little bunny teeth.The way the corners of his eyes crinkled was going to give him a heart attack if Stiles looked at him too long.The smile was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived and Stiles found he could breathe again, though he could quickly find himself getting distracted by the way the sunlight hit the little white hairs dusted in his beard.Shit.

“Let’s just start at the diner.Cut out the middle man.”HIs tone was so dry and flat that if it hadn’t been for the total eclipse of his smile and the words that were definitely saying yes to a date-type activity, Stiles probably would have gotten really confused. 

“Yeah, that sounds good.”This wasn’t really happening, right?

“Tuesday, then.”

“Tuesday, yup.I can make Tuesday work.”

“Are you going to suggest a time and place, or just keep staring at me like I’ve grown a third ear in the middle of my forehead?”That finally got Stiles’s brain working again and he felt himself blush a little bit, pleased that at least his body had the good graces to respond appropriately even if his brain didn’t.

“Yeah.Sure, do you know the place over near the highway, the one that won’t let you touch your cel—”

“Duke’s?”God, gorgeous and he knew the divey places where you could get the best milkshakes.

“Yeah.How about Duke’s at eleven?Beat the lunch rush and get the booth that isn’t next to the can?”When Derek shot him a look, Stiles decided that he wasn’t really in love with the other man, just his eyebrows.They were amazing, and they said so. Damned. Much.

“That works.”Without another word or even a cute little kiss to the cheek, Derek spun on his heel and stalked away from Stiles, looking like he was just as likely to chew up the sidewalk as he was to walk on it.There was definitely something wrong with Stiles, finding that hot instead of weird.Definitely.

It took several minutes for Stiles to realize he was standing there by himself, staring at someone’s ass (oh what an ass, he was going to write sonnets), wearing a Wonder Woman apron and probably earning all sorts of shit from the rest of his crew.They weren’t going to let him live this down.Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Stiles set his shoulders straight and headed back inside, wondering just how long it was going to take all of them to start with the ribbing, gentle or otherwise.

When his return to the kitchen was greeted with silence, Stiles was immediately suspicious.It certainly wasn’t like the guys to just let something like this drop without so much as mentioning it.Mike was nowhere to be seen, but Caitlin, his partner in crime when he couldn’t be around Scotty, was there stirring his chili a little and very resolutely not looking in his direction.

“Out with it.”Apparently forty-five seconds of silence was too much for the both of them, because she practically burst the second he gave her clearance.

“He is the most beautiful man in the world.Where did you find him?Is there a farm where they put Abercrombie and Fitch models out to pasture after they turn thirty?”Once Caitlin had run out of steam a little bit, they both got a chuckle and Stiles grabbed the half baguettes he’d brought in for garlic bread, cutting them in half. 

“Remember the kitchen fire last week?Eyebrows out there is the homeowner.I dropped my glove.”The butter was the right consistency to spread easily and Stiles busied his hands so he could pretend he wasn’t very quietly freaking out about the fact that Derek had agreed on a date.Or a date-appearing thing.He should probably confirm that at some point, or risk even more heartbreak later.

“And he went on quest to figure out where you worked to return it?Did you turn into a Disney princess when I wasn’t paying attention.”Caitlin snorted softly and considered the chili, clearly wanting to do something to it.As the only person in the building that had actually helped Stiles when he got fall-down drunk after his last messy breakup, she had the right to look like that, but if she reached for the spice drawer he was going to slap her knuckles with a spoon.It was likely that she saw the murder in his face, because she wisely kept her hands to herself and stirring.

“I left my number.”Dodging the dish towel she threw at his head, Stiles kept his focus on getting the garlic bread into the oven, bumping her out of the way with his hip.“He was having a panic attack and didn’t know it.Wouldn’t let Boyd take care of him, and he lives alone.It was purely helper instinct.

“Yeah, helping you get your dick wet,” Caitlin muttered and pushed him gently out of the way so she could grab a glass.The kitchen really wasn’t big enough for as many people that needed to use it.“You know you shouldn’t have done that.”She was right, as much as he didn’t want to admit it.Leaning back against the counter and chewing on the inside of his cheek, he considered his words carefully, trying to think of something to say to justify it, to make it all ok.That wasn’t really possible, of course.This was a pretty significant breech, if you assumed Stiles had just wanted to get Derek to go out with him.  

“I know, bud,” she sighed softly.Though she was nearly a foot shorter than him, Caitlin reached up to ruffle his hair gently and he leaned into her solid weight.Their Odd Couple friendship still seemed to flummox the rest of their team sometimes, but she was smarter than the rest of them put together and thick enough to bench press Stiles.She was a good friend.STeady in ways Stiles could never be.“You didn’t want him going through that alone.Just be careful, hm?”Stiles nodded and sighed when he saw a flicker of activity out in the hallway. 

“I think the wolves are about to descend.You want to give them the go-ahead?”Caitlin just grinned in reply to his question and cupped her hands around her mouth, barely giving Stiles enough time to cover his ears before she screamed for everyone to join them.

In the rush of bodies and sweat and scarfing that ensued, Stiles didn’t even manage to get any garlic bread.


	3. Combustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek and Stiles go on their first date, and also Stiles gets to see Scott and Scott's adorable offspring.
> 
> (I went back and corrected a few spelling errors in this chapter, oops!)

The week between Derek’s appearance and their maybe-date did that weird thing where it seemed to drag and rush all at the same time.There were days that disappeared under his feet, leaving him dizzy with how fast they went by, but other days felt like they went on for years and years.And years.Because every additional hour was one that stood between him and a greasy burger and the best milkshake in the city and those impossible eyes.When Tuesday finally came, it snuck up on cat’s paws in the middle of the night.His shift ended late and it took everything in him to drive home and get into his own bed instead of just crashing at work, but he knew he wouldn’t get enough sleep to be a functional, charming, single guy on a maybe-date if he did that.So he was in bed by midnight, asleep just a minute or two later, and snoring until just past eight.A full night’s sleep and he had almost three hours to get to Duke’s and for half a second Stiles felt like a viable adult.Grown up and shit.

Showered, dressed, and fed so he wouldn’t make a complete ass of himself and eat a napkin or something out of desperation, it was a struggle to figure out what to do for the last half hour before he needed to head for the diner.He had forty five minutes before he needed to get in his car, and even then he’d probably be a couple minutes early.

Out of sheer desperation, he texted Scott.

 

**You working?**

_Nah day off.Bro day?_

**I got a dateish thing I’m gonna be stupid early for if I don’t find something to distract me.**

_Dateish thing?Wanna come over and tell me all about it while I’m on baby duty?_

**Be there in five.**

 

The fact that they were all stretched thin moneywise and worked in one of a handful of relatively high risk jobs meant his friends all lived close enough to be annoyingly codependent when they wanted to.It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to realize that his entire social life worked as a first responder or in a hospital, but really that couldn’t be too much of a surprise.No one else in the world had the fucked up schedule and adrenaline junky addictive personality combination.Birds of a feather, etc, etc.

The drive to Scott’s was just short enough that Stiles only heard the first half of the new Taylor Swift song, which meant it would be stuck in his head all day in a limited loop and drive him nuts.He was humming when he bopped up the sidewalk to the little bungalow that Scott and Kira had been renting for the past few years, trying in vain to save up enough to buy a place of their own.Though he had a key for baby-sleep-preserving purposes, Scott had already unlocked the door in anticipation of his arrival and he could go right in.

“So did you finally snag that girl that’s been riding with Boyd?”Stiles loved that Scott just launched into conversations without preamble, it felt like they were still doing the freaky telepathic thing they’d perfected when they were seven and started to lose once college and quasi-adulthood hit.

“Nah, turns out she’s on the ‘no thank you’ end of the sex spectrum,” he called back, toeing off his shoes at the door and padding into the kitchen where Mari was covered from her dark hair down to her fingertips in what smelled like peas.“How’s my sweet girl today, huh?Are you being good for your dad even though he does the airplane thing all wrong?”Something about a cute toddler made his inside go to mush.It didn’t hurt that said toddler was his best friend’s first kid. And was super fucking cute.

“I don’t do the airplane thing wrong, I do the train thing,” Scott muttered, shoving the spoon in Stiles’s direction with a frustrated huff.“So she is…”

“Asexual, bud.We went over this.”Not that he could really begrudge his straight as a ruler but incredibly supportive best bud for confusing the massive variety of flavors that people came in.“I sort of left my number at a scene last week.We’re getting lunch at Duke’s.”. Rather than dealing with the look of profound judgement from Scott, Stiles kept his head down and used a soft cloth to wipe Mari’s face before getting her to take a big bite of the mush that Scott had been failing to feed her for ten minutes.

“That’s fucking stupid.”Scott was at least blunter than Caitlin had been, and he was really starting to nail the disappointed dad face.“You know better than that.”

“Hey, he was having a panic attack and wouldn’t let anybody help.Incident commander was already letting people roll out and I figured he would feel better knowing someone cared,” Stiles said in a sing-song tone, cajoling Mari into taking another few bites.They were all fucked when she started really understanding English, let alone talking. 

“You could have left a helpline number instead of yours.”Damn him for being right.

“Look, I can’t go back and change that part.All I can do now is go on a hopefully-date with the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my entire life, no exaggeration.”By this point Mari had polished off any food that wasn’t already on her skin, so Stiles slid to his feet to drop the spoon and empty container into the sink.Glancing down at his sweater (gray, actually factually clean) and then back at the baby, who was grabbing the air and repeating the noise that he hoped would one day turn into ‘Stiles’, he shot a desperate look at Scott, who was still in his pajamas (Beacon Hills lacrosse shirt, already stained with spit up).With a soft sigh and a grin, Scott scooped his daughter up and began to wipe her hands and face more thoroughly.

“What’s his name?”

“Derek.I’ve been calling him Eyebrows because he has some sentient caterpillar ones on his face.” Fingers spread wide, Stiles waved his hand in front of his face and wiggled his own far less impressive brows at Scott. “He’s got eyes that I don’t even know what kind of color they are.And his ass—” Scott made a pained noise and gave the top of his daughter’s head a meaningful look.“—ets.His assets are significant.”

“And somehow you convinced him to go to your very favorite diner on a Tuesday.You must really like this guy.”The smile Scott offered him was a little teasing, a little jealous, a little sheepish.God, he loved this man.If Kira ever decided she wanted two husbands, Stiles was going to move them all to Utah.

“He already knew about Duke’s.I offered to take him to the new fusion place first.”Not the whole truth, but enough of it to count.A quick glance at the microwave told him that he had to waste another ten minutes before he could go.“How’s your fabulous wife?”

“Working.”There was a lot packed into that one little word. With Stiles working in the ER, Kira’s job as a teacher at a relatively posh private school was what gave their growing family any sense of stability at all.At least Scott had come by it honestly, with following in his mom’s footsteps to don scrubs as a nurse. It was funny, just how much all three of them had ended up mirroring one of their parents.“We miss her a lot, don’t we, kit?”Pressing a kiss to Mari’s temple, Scott sighed softly.“Still trying to figure out how to make my shifts work without either one of us going crazy.I don’t know if I want to go back to pediatrics, but the hours are a lot…less crazy.”

“You’ll figure it out, bro. You always do.”Leaning in to blow a raspberry on one of Mari’s beautifully chubby cheeks, Stiles grinned when she giggled and squealed, waving her little fists in the air.“Lemme know if you need any backup.I’ve got some vacation time coming, and you know Dad wouldn’t mind taking a couple grandpa duty days, either.”Scott started to protest, but Stiles just covered his mouth with a calloused hand and tutted a little bit.“What’s family for, if not hoisting your kids off on them when you need free babysitting?”

“I can’t argue with that,” Scott said wisely, giving Stilesa soft smile when he finally dropped his hand away now that he was confident Scott was gonna quit with the objections. 

“I swear, bro, if she’s grows into your jaw like you did, you’re going to have a heartbreaker on your hands.”Stiles couldn’t resist giving Mari one last loud smooch before he headed back towards the door, cramming his feet into his shoes and doing his best not to vibrate out of his skin with pent up energy and anticipation. 

“Bye Uncle Stiles,” Scott squeaked, his voice high and bubbly as he used a gentle hold on one of Mari’s wrists to wave her little fist at him.

“I’m going to eat your child, Scotty.She’s too cute for this world.”And with that, he was out the door again, having successfully wasted almost all of the time he needed, and gotten a hit of baby smell to boot.

The drive to Duke’s certainly wasn’t a long one, and familiar enough that it was second instinct at this point.That that he’d ever admit to how he knew, but Stiles could get from Scott’s to Duke’s drunk and with one eye closed.The parking lot wasn’t even close to the kind of full it got on weekend nights when families showed up for dinner before the college kids showed up to pregame.Duke’s had earned the position of community staple over the last five-plus decades and there was no sign of that changing any time soon.

To call Duke’s divey wasn’t entirely fair.It was brightly lit and clean, at least at eleven on a Tuesday it was, and the patrons weren’t assholes for the most part.The staff were all perfectly polite, but they weren’t friendly with anyone who wasn’t a regular on a daily basis.They had a job, and it was to get you fed and get you out the door as fast as possible so the table could go to the next person. 

Thankfully, being a firefighter had it’s perks sometimes, and Stiles at least got a glance and a little (almost) smile from the burly guy behind the front counter.Stiles was pretty sure he wasn’t the original Duke, but he moved like he had an umbilical chord attaching him to the place and he wore flannel all the time.Stiles liked him, even if he did threaten to kick him out any time his cellphone was visible.It stopped at threats, thankfully, because Duke made the best milkshakes in thirty miles and Stiles would have wept and worn a hair shirt in mourning if he ever lost access to him.

When he turned to drop himself into his regular booth, halfway between the bathroom and the door in a beam of sunlight that would stay all day, he was surprised to find someone already sitting in it.Anger flared and fizzed out immediately when he realized it was Derek, replaced instantly by something soft and fond curling in his belly. 

Christ, the man was wearing a sweater with thumb holes. It was the color of merlot and it looked so soft Stiles almost slid onto the bench beside him and buried his face against Derek’s chest.

Shit, he was in so much trouble.

“I see you found my favorite spot.”Doing himself a small favor by sitting across from Derek instead of in his lap, Stiles grinned easily at the other man and did his very best not to stare.

“I like this spot.”Neither of them even glanced at the menu, which only made Stiles love him even more.

“For a second there you had me worried I was late.”Giving his watch a meaningful glance, Stiles watched, delighted, as the tips of Derek’s ears went pink.“I figured fifteen minutes early meant I would be the first one here.”

“I like being early.”

“What else do you like, besides this booth and being early?”Now Derek’s cheeks were pink too and Stiles was pretty sure that he was dead and this was actually heaven because this man was too fucking adorable for him to really exist.

“Bacon bleu burger,” Derek replied, a smile in his voice even if there wasn’t really one on his face.At first, Stiles thought he was responding to the question, but he quickly realized that a waitress (Sandy) had arrived and was staring at him, waiting for him to answer the unasked question, too.

“Oh!Sorry, classic cheeseburger with no onions and the sharp cheddar.Extra fries, chocolate shake.”Grinning broadly when Sandy rolled her eyes a little bit at him, not bothering to write down either of their orders before she wandered off towards the kitchen.Stiles took the opportunity to fill his water glass with the pitcher that was on the table, wiping the condensation from it off on his jeans absently.“I get the feeling that bacon bleu burgers aren’t the only thing you like, so I’d love another shot at that question.”Derek’s surprised expression broke Stiles’s heart a little bit.He was starting to get the feeling that being in Derek’s proximity was going to result in some long term whiplash issues, oscillating from twitterpated to gutted from moment to moment.

“So this is a date.”

“I probably should have specified that, huh?”

“It explains why you left your number for a complete stranger after a really mild kitchen fire.”The smile that had been curling in Derek’s voice was gone, and Stiles suddenly felt off balance, like he’d said the wrong thing and didn’t even know what or how or why.

“I left my number in case you needed a friend, I’m pretty sure we went over this.Remember, adults being friendly and nice to each other in times of need?Bad role models?” 

“Then when did this turn into a date?” Derek asked, his dark eyebrows flat and affectless.Stiles missed the complicated dancing they did, it was at least communicative. 

“I blame the Wonder Woman apron.”That, finally, had some of the tension draining from Derek’s shoulders, though he still looked a lot less happy than when Stiles had arrived.“Should I be apologizing?”There was a long enough silence to really concern him after his question, and Stiles began to wonder if this had been any kind of good idea after all.But, middle name…foolhardy.Right.

“No.I just wanted to make sure.”Another beat and Derek sat there staring at Stiles, the silence stretching out between them like Silly Putty, getting thinner and more brittle.

“So what do you do for a living?” Stiles asked, desperate to break the silence before it broke him.“You already know what I do.Seems only fair.”

“I work with books.”That was vague and intriguing, and it took Derek a second to wind himself up to say more.“Editing and translating.Mostly fiction, these days.I work from home a lot.It’s quiet.”

“That sounds pretty fucking neat, dude,” Stiles’s enthusiasm coincided with the the arrival of his shake and he bounced in his seat a little bit, excited for the brain freeze and the sugar equally.“Do you like it?How long have you been doing it?”

“It suits me.”Another beat.“A couple of years.”Beat.“Ten.”Derek looked surprised by the revelation, doing a little math in his head and wondering when it had become that long.

“What’s your favorite part?”

“Why are we talking about me?”That had Stiles looking up from the mess he was making of getting the paper off his straw, blinking at Derek.

“I mean…you made it pretty clear you’re not super fond of firefighters.I figured we’d start with your work since you probably don’t want to talk about mine.”Finally getting the straw out, he stabbed it into the shake and took a big suck, pressing his tongue against the roof off his mouth and shivering when the cold hit his brain pan and made everything tingle.“But if you want the thirty second elevator pitch on all things Stiles, buckle in.I’m a mostly only child, my best bud and I have been bros since the sandbox though so I count him sometimes—both from single parent homes.I’m 28 years old, I’m not at all freaked about the fact that I’m almost thirty, I think Don Cheadle is dreamy, and I like my job a lot.But again, we’re not talking about that.I think waffles are the most important food group,” he finished with a flourish, raising his hands up and wiggling his fingers like he had just wrapped up an interpretive dance of some kind.Derek was silent for a couple seconds, and they were both saved by the arrival of their food.

“Forgive me for saying this, Eyebrows, but you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who eats greasy burgers a lot.”The fact that Stiles was saying this with a mouthful of fries shoved between his teeth was for the moment lost on him.

“I work out so I can eat greasy burgers.Desk job just makes it harder to maintain.”Watching Derek eat, Stiles was suddenly very aware just how big and messy he did everything.Derek’s burger was a neat stack and he cut it in half before taking his first bite, pausing now and then to sip his water or wipe his hands.There wasn’t a shine of grease on his chin or hands for more than a second.Stiles, on the other hand, was shocked that he’d mad it this far into the meal without staining his shirt or getting something in his ear.Which had happened.Repeatedly.

“Thus the microwave dinner, huh?”Derek looked momentarily confused, so Stiles elaborated, “The class C fire that resulted in me showing up in your house to poke the proverbial bear?How’d that even happen, anyway?”Stiles watched as Derek wiped his hands carefully on his napkin, chewing the bite that was in his mouth.Maybe dragging it out a little bit so he didn’t have to speak right away.

“I was making Easy Mac,” the big man muttered into a french fry.

“I’m sorry…what was that?”

“I was making Easy Mac and I forgot to put the water in.”A completely different shade of pink than he’d turned before, Derek took a massive bite of his burger to keep himself from saying more.

“You were making Easy Mac and you forgot to put in the water and that resulted in a dozen first responders showing up on your front lawn while you hid in the bathtub and hissed at them like an angry tomcat?”He couldn’t help the bark of laughter that dropped from his mouth at that, surprised and delighted at the idea of this man, this incredibly adult and competent seeming man nearly burning his house down because he’d forgotten to put water in his instant mac n cheese.Derek’s face was doing this complicated shimmy between embarrassed, chagrined, and enraged, looking for all the world like he wanted nothing more than another bathtub to hide in.“Do we need to have a conversation about fire safety in the kitchen?”The look Derek shot him at that was a definite no, but it also made his belly swoop and swing with affection and arousal.Something was very wrong with him that murder eyebrows went straight to his dick.“Please remember not to use a knife to fish things out of the toaster when it’s plugged in, ok?”When all he got in response was a grunt and a fry thrown at his head, Stiles counted it as a victory.

The silence this time wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable.

“You said single parent?” Derek asked, letting it hang there and clearly expecting Stiles to fill in the blanks.He had to rewind the tape in his head real fast to get what the other man was shooting for, but he got there eventually.

“Yeah.My mom died when I was eleven, so it was just me and my dad after that.We did ok making sure we were fed and the roof didn’t cave in or anything.Scott, that’s my BFF, his dad took off a couple years earlier, so my dad and his mom had their own little club where they did their best to make sure we got good grades and didn’t get arrested or anything.What about you, what was home like?”

For all that he didn’t say much, Derek’s face spoke volumes, and Stiles suspected it was entirely without his knowledge.A blank mask snapped into place the minute Stiles had the question out of his mouth.After a second, he could almost see Derek clawing his way back out of whatever hole he’d buried himself in, peeling the layers away, impatient with himself.

“It’s just me and my sisters now.”That kind of statement didn’t invite further discussion, so Stiles let it drop for the moment, knowing it was going to prompt some serious Googling later.Maybe a couple of searches with his dad’s credentials in systems he wasn’t supposed to have access to.

“That’s cool, the one you got lunch with the other day.It’s a bummer when people don’t stay close with their family.There’s totally legit reasons not to, but it’s still sad.”At that point, it seemed prudent to shove some more fries in his face so he wouldn’t continue to make an ass of himself without any sort of recourse other than melting into the booth bench and hoping Derek would just forget he existed at all.

“Yeah.We weren’t always close.”Derek took another neat bite of his burger and chewed, looking like he might actually survive Hurricane Stiles, which was a pretty great feeling, generally.“She’s going to school.College, I mean.There were…a rough couple of years.And I like that she’s nearby.She lived far away for a while, when we were younger,” Derek sort of petered out slowly, looking like he was running out of steam and words at about the same time, so Stiles took it upon himself to fill the silence.

“Did you study…editing and languages, I guess?What kind of degree do you even get for editing?”More fries, this time dipped into his shake just for a little variety. 

“I started with Spanish and Japanese.”Derek paused to sip at his water again, leaning forward on his elbows and plucking at his sleeves to cover his knuckles better.“Creative writing came later.And education.I fell into editing more out of luck and happy accident than anything else.”Stiles let out a low, admiring whistle and shook his head.

“I barely survived two years of French in high school, and the only Spanish I know is purely through osmosis from the guys I work with, and it’s 100% not safe for work.”Giving Derek a teasing wink, he pushed a few fry bits around his plate slowly and hummed.“Education, though.That’s even harder work.Scotty just had his first kid about ten months ago and we’re still trying to get into the swing of things with her.”

There was something about Derek’s face that just…melted Stiles.At the mention of Mari, the other man smiled softly and ducked his head, clearly trying to hide his emotions and failing miserably.He looked flushed and happy, gentle.No scowling, no hissing tomcat in a bathtub.

“I always thought I’d go back into the classroom at some point.That’s really what started the languages.ESL and ASL classes.Still fluent in Spanish, but my ASL is pretty rusty.”Stiles watched Derek drag his hand over the back of his neck a little bit, chewing on the inside of his cheek. 

“Can I like…Vulcan mind meld with you or something to be able to learn something other than broken English and even more busted Polish?You’ve got a superpower, it’s fuckin’ cool.”The other man’s ears went pink again and Stiles resolved to make Derek blush as much as humanly possible for the rest of their lives because it was adorable.

“I’ve just got a head for it.Tal—my mother did, too.”

“Still a superpower.”Grinning broadly, Stiles shoved the last piece of his burger into his mouth and chewed happily, leaning back and patting his belly with intense satisfaction.“Even if you do forget to put water in your Easy Mac and set your kitchen on fire a little bit.”The shifting expression on Derek’s face let Stiles know he’d probably not said exactly the right thing, but neither of them let it give them more than a second’s pause.Stiles was getting better at dancing around the bad bits instead of poking at Derek’s injuries.

“Did you study dumping water on fires?”Derek’s dry wit was the perfect match for his flat affect, just the slightest sparkle in his eyes revealing just how deep the teasing could go.

“Har freakin’ har.”Snorting softly and finishing off the last of his milkshake as Derek cleaned his plate (and he did mean clean, the thing was fucking spotless like it had been licked), Stiles shook his head.“Criminal justice, actually.Minor in history because I get bored easily.Idleness, devils, etc.I went out to Maryland, but I came back after school.Missed the weather, missed my family.Did you go away for school?”

“My sister and I moved away when I was in high school.Got my GED.NYU for undergrad, Rochester for grad school.The one in New York, not Minnesota.”Taking a moment to refill both their water glasses, Derek glanced up in surprised when Sandy appeared and left their bill on the edge of the table.Stiles snatched it up before Derek could even think about grabbing it, pulling his wallet out and throwing down more than enough to cover their food.A quick glance told him that the diner was starting to fill up and it was probably polite for them to give Duke the table back. 

“I barely survived four years right outside of DC, I don’t think I would have managed upstate New York in winter.Let’s free up the good booth.”The other man looked ready to fight Stiles over the money on the table, but like he was struggling to come up with an effective and gracious way to do it, so Stiles slipped to his feet and offered Derek his hand.Now confronted with the possibility of being rude twice over, Derek huffed out an annoyed noise and rolled his eyes at Stiles, shoving up and out of the booth and crowding him until they were both headed towards the door.

“You didn’t need to pay,” Derek murmured softly when the bright midday sun hit them both, looking sheepish and adorable again.

“My father did his absolute best to raise me with some manners…some of it even stuck.”Giving the other man a grin and another wink, Stiles stood there shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot.“Can I walk you to your car?”That seemed to actually catch Derek off guard and after a moment, he nodded, turning towards the far end of the little lot and jingling his keys in his pockets.

“This was…not what I was expecting,” he snorted as they drew abreast of a black mom-mobile, a Toyota that was trying very hard not to look like it had snacks for soccer practice in the trunk and failing.“I had you pegged as a motorcycle or muscle car guy.”Derek rolled his eyes again, but he was smiling this time, shrugging one shoulder at the car, which Stiles was pleased to see had been backed into the space.He could appreciate the efficiency of that, the backup plan in it.The forethought.

“I had one.A muscle car, I mean.This is better for farmer’s markets and antiquing.”And with that dry, teasing statement, Stiles was completely and utterly besotted.A laugh bubbled in his mouth, easy and free, and Stiles leaned in, curling his hand around Derek’s elbow.Once his chuckle had died down a bit, Stiles licked his lips and turned his eyes back to Derek’s face.

“I want to kiss you.”He never understood the guys that thought getting explicit, verbal consent wasn’t sexy or fun.“God, I want to kiss you so fucking badly.”Voice dropping to a whisper, he angled in closer, fingers tightening.It only took a slight inclination of Derek’s head for Stiles to press in, brush their lips together.Sure, his libido was thrashing and begging for something hot and filthy, but they’d just had lunch.Awkward, charming lunch, so Stiles kept it simple and sweet, chaste instead of raunchy.Their noses bumped a little and Stiles almost pumped his fist in the air when Derek made a quiet noise in the back of his throat.Easing back just a bit, enough for both of them to breathe, Stiles squeezed Derek’s elbow gently and grinned.Derek’s eyes didn’t lift from his lips, and Stiles licked them self-consciously.

“You free for dinner tonight?” Stiles couldn’t help joking a little, still mostly whispering.When Derek looked confused, a little turned around maybe, he chuckled, not unkindly.“I really need date number two to happen quickly, I’m gonna want to kiss you like…all the time.”That had Derek blushing again, and Stiles counted it as a victory.He was surprised when Derek swooped in for a hard little peck to the lips, shaking his head a bit as he finally stepped back towards the Toyota’s door. 

“You’re a dork.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“I have to get work done tonight.”

“So…rain check?”There was a beat, and Derek nodded before unlocking his car door and climbing in.

“Yeah.Rain check.Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.I’ll text you.”Stiles took enough of a step back that Derek could pull out and drive off with a little wave, still blushing.

The second that he was sure the Toyota was out of view, Stiles finally punched the air a few times, yanking his phone out and sending a mess of emojis to both Scott and his dad.Scott replied with a mess of his own (mostly peaches and eggplants because as the father of a brand new baby his mind had one single track sometimes), and his dad just senta couple confused question marks, but absolutely nothing was going to kill Stiles’s buzz.

Derek was perfect, and Stiles was in love.


	4. Dispatch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Date number two is arranged, and Stiles calls his dad.
> 
> (I went back and corrected a few spelling errors in this chapter, too. This is what I get for editing too fast.)

It wasn’t like he was obsessed or anything.Stiles had a life of his own, responsibilities and things that had to get done even though he was absotively posolutely in love with Derek, who he was only now realizing didn’t have anything but “Eyebrows” in the place where his last name should have been in Stiles’s phone.They were going to have to resolve that.Soon.

But still, Stiles had bills to pay and dishes to do and a cactus to throw an ice cube on so it wouldn’t die on him like the first three had.But that really only killed a couple hours before Stiles found himself sitting in the laundromat reading the same paragraph over and over again and thinking about the way Derek’s lips had felt against his, the audible scrape of his carefully cultivated scruff against his skin.

 

**What’s your favorite book?**

 

There was a pause, like Derek wasn’t as on top of his phone as Stiles was, at least on his days off.

 

 _Ever_?

**Yeah, ever.Unless you have a different metric that’ll tell me more about you?**

_I like the Rivers of London books.They’re good distraction.And the audiobooks have a good narrator._

**I’ll have to check those out.Do you listen to audiobooks a lot?**

_I spend all day reading for work, don’t want my eyes to bleed._

_They also come in handy while I’m working off greasy burgers, like now._

**You’re working out right now?**

_Yeah, I’ve got a set up at home so I can avoid human contact as much as possible._

 

Something deep inside Stiles was broken.He found Derek’s hermit-tude attractive.

 

**Too many Januaries sharing machines with resolution warriors, huh?**

_My sisters would say it’s also a bad case of general misanthropy._

**So what are my chances of getting a sweaty workout selfie?**

 

_A beat._

 

_You want a picture of me looking gross from my workout?_

**I’ll trade you one of me looking miserable while I do my laundry.**

_You’re a very strange man._

**And I’m lucky you seem to like that, so far.**

To this, Stiles attached a picture of himself, posing with the bottle of laundry detergent like they were old pals, winking and pointing at the camera.

 

Another beat, long enough to be worrying as Stiles rotated his whites from the washer to the dryer, glaring at a woman who was trying to poach his good machine out from under him.When he got back to his seat and his phone, Stiles couldn’t help the little gasp that caught in his mouth, cheeks feeling suddenly warm.

Derek was a pretty man.Stiles knew this.But the picture he got from the other man cleared his skin, paid off his student loans, and watered his crops.Derek’s hair was flat against his head with sweat, a fading NYU tee stretched across his shoulders and chest, looking very much like it was just moments from giving up the ghost.The other man didn’t look sweaty at all, just that beautiful kind of dewy that attractive people got when they exerted themselves instead of drowning in their own salt and water like Stiles.

 

**Do you come in a green bottle?**

_What?_

**Cause I’d sure like to mount ‘n do you.**

_That was the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard._

**I’ve got much worse than that.**

_What’s your favorite book?_

**Good job changing the subject quickly, you’ll need to teach that to Scotty.**

**I got really obsessed with the Star Wars EU when I was younger (Disney went and broke my heart with that one, no matter how much I love all the gay space husbands now).**

**But I think the Redwall books are my favorite.**

**Or maybe Diana Wynne Jones.**

_I would have pegged you for a Trekkie._

**GASP.Betrayal!**

 

This time Stiles sent a picture of himself draped over his chair, one hand clutched to his chest and the other flung back against his brow, melodrama rolling off him in waves.

 

_But you like fantasy books?_

**I like YA stuff.I feel like YA is a lot braver than books for grown ups.People get to be more real.More messed up in true ways.**

_I understand that.I did some work with a popular YA author a while back, doing translation for her publisher.It was nice, to take a break from constant death and dying and pain, to remember books don’t need to be overwhelmingly dark to be good._

**Your job is still so much neater than anybody else’s.**

_I’d argue that point, but I get the feeling you won’t give in._

**Quick learner.Where are we going to dinner?**

_Aren’t you going to take me to the second best milkshake in Sacramento?_

**Tease.I picked lunch, you pick dinner.**

 

A pause, in which Stiles decided to believe Derek showered and wandered around his neat little house naked.If he spent a couple seconds imaging Derek naked in that sunny yellow bathroom, it definitely wasn’t his fault at all that his filthy brain went there.

 

_I would offer to cook, but I didn’t make a great first impression in the kitchen._

**Hey buddy, if you want to make me my first home cooked meal in weeks, who am I to get in the way of that?Just promise you won’t use the microwave and I’ll leave my uniform in my car.**

_Do you have any food allergies?_

**Nope!I’m not always a huge fan of mushrooms, but I’ll eat pretty much anything you put in front of me.**

**Don’t look a gift chef in the mouth.**

**Or something.**

_Then I’ll cook._

_6:30 work for you?_

**Sure does.**

_I assume you remember the address?_

**Mind like a steel trap.**

_I’ll see you tomorrow at 6:30._

**It’s a date.**

**Just in case there was any confusion on that point.**

**That this is another date.**

**And I’m gonna smooch the heck out of you.**

_I’m sorry, I only kiss grown adults, not people who say smooch unironically._

**Tease.**

**I’ll see you tomorrow, Derek.**

 

A victory dance was definitely in order, right?There was no reason he shouldn’t shake his flat white ass in the middle of Lord of the Rinse, prompting several people to stare and one child to point and laugh.Because he had a second date with Derek Eyebrows, which proved that somehow, the world was a good and just place.At least in this one very specific way.

Briefly, he considered FaceTiming his dad to catch up, but he’d already made himself enough of nuisance to everyone else in the place.Later, when they were both eating dinner or something, he’d call and reacquaint himself with his father’s chins, since the sheriff couldn’t seem to ever get the angle right on his phone.After replying to a couple of texts that he’d been letting fester a little too long (Lydia was going to rip him a new one when they were both home for Christmas), Stiles went right back to the fourteen games of Words with Friends he had going, hoping that would be enough to occupy him while he waited for his last load to dry.

It was a small miracle that the Jeep still started on the first try, only grumbling a little bit on the transition from second gear to third once in a while, when it was too humid and Stiles hadn’t thanked her properly.But the back was big enough for his bad habit of letting his laundry sit for a month before dealing with it, and he liked the memories that it carried around with it.

One day, he would move into a place that had laundry in unit.One day, Stiles wouldn’t strain his back trying to haul four bags of finally clean clothing up three flights of stairs all at once, because he wasn’t patient enough to wait.One day, he’d be responsible and do something like not waiting until the very last minute to pay his taxes, but today was not that day.So taxes and a baseball game on the radio and a beer that he maybe shouldn’t have had until after he’d looked at his W-2.All in all, a very productive afternoon, even if it wasn’t nearly as fun as kissing a handsome man in Duke’s parking lot, which Stiles was belatedly realizing would probably get him in some trouble when he next went for breakfast with Scotty or the crew.There was absolutely no way that the diner’s venerable proprietor, not to mention his lovely and invasively nosy wife wouldn’t get all up in his business.It was just the kind of people they were.

Once the Mets had kicked the shit out of the Red Sox and Stiles had moved on to his second beer, contemplating which of a variety of frozen dinners he wanted to heat up as the sun bathed his disorderly apartment in pink-orange light, he finally called his dad.It took a couple rings for Noah to pick up, grunting and giving Stiles a great view of his nose hair before he fumbled and propped the phone up against what Stiles assumed was the fruit bowl in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Hey, kiddo.I thought I’d get a call earlier than this,” the sheriff said around a mouthful of something that looked green and like it had actually gotten cooked instead of microwaved.Melissa was on the job, and Stiles loved her for it.

“I had chores to do, daddy-o.Plus, you were at work.Were you expecting my call?”

“I heard you had a dateish thing that got upgraded to a date,” Noah said after taking a sip of water.Good dad, no beer on a weeknight.Resolving not to tempt fate (or his father), Stiles rolled to his feet and made his way into the kitchen, holding his phone up high enough that his dad would actually see his face instead of his chest.After a quick debate, he settled on some frozen burritos, because they didn’t sound as sad as the other options currently clogging up the airflow in his freezer.Popping three of them onto a plate and into the microwave, he turned his attention back to the little screen in front of him.

“How do you know it was a date?I do not believe that you discerned my complicated emoji doublespeak.”There was a pause and Stiles groaned softly, rolling his eyes.“Melissa told you, didn’t she?Scotty told Mommy that I had a date because he was bored on baby duty, and she told you when she dropped off your dinner.I bet she has the night shift and that’s why you’re eating alone.”Noah shrugged, mouth still full, looking a little chagrined.“Zero points for subtle, Dad.Negative twenty points to Hufflepuff.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”With his plate clean and his belly full, Noah leaned back in his seat, hand on his belly. 

“Negative fifty!I know you’ve been sniffing around her, young man.If you do something and I lose access to the best chilaquiles in the world, I cannot be held accountable for what I do in retaliation.”The microwave beeped, and Stiles took a moment to turn his burritos over and start the final reheating.“You know we’re good, right?”That had his dad looking genuinely confused, instead of desperately trying to pretend he was innocent.“Dad, you and Melissa have been circling around this for a really long time.As long as you’re both happy, you know Scott and I will be happy.Don’t feel like you need to pretend it’s not…a big deal.Or pretend that it is.I dunno what I’m even saying anymore, you should definitely save me from myself now,” Stiles ended with a nervous little laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck.Noah mirrored the gesture and shook his head.

“You're a little shit, you know that?But you’re a good kid.”Stiles watched his dad take a deep breath and sigh, rubbing at the ring he still wore, even almost twenty years later.“We’ve gone on a couple of dates of our own.Taking it slow.Not really any reason to rush things, after all this time.”

“I’m firmly of the opinion that the ‘all this time’ bit sort of justifies rushing, but hey, not my circus.”Noah snorted as Stiles pulled his burritos out of the microwave and promptly burned both his fingertips and his mouth on the first one. 

“But you didn’t call to talk to me about my love life, you called to talk to me about yours.Until I get fed up and hang up on you because you overshare again, at least.”Rolling his eyes a bit, Stiles carried his dinner over to the tiny table in his own kitchen and propped his phone up on two empty pizza boxes that he definitely should have thrown out already.

“Right you are, father mine.”Now that the sting of hot cheese had faded, Stiles grinned at the camera, mugging a little bit.“He’s a dreamboat.Like, right out of a high end fashion ad.But I shit you not, the man is a bigger dork than I am.”Thanking his lucky stars that he’d ended up with a dad that had no problem with his penchant for homoromanticism (well, no more of a problem with the homo- than when it was hetero-), Stiles sighed and shook his head.“He edits and translates books for a living.I don’t even know how many languages he speaks, and he already knew about Duke’s.I’m besotted and it’s taking everything in my power not to ask him to marry me immediately.”

“Don’t move too fast, son.You know not everybody can keep up.”Noah looked happy, genuinely pleased for his son, and Stiles based his in his father’s approval for a moment.They’d talked about this before, his habit of falling fast and hard and no always doing right by himself or his partners by going straight for grand gestures.The only thing Stiles loved more than his job was being in love, or at least being so consumed by someone, or occasionally something, that his more worldly concerns fell away.“Let’s make sure you survive date number two before you start picking out wedding china.”

“Fair.I just…I really like him, Dad.He’s a little bit of an asshole, but he’s got a soft bit in the middle that makes me want to wrap him in a blanket and feed him.”His father’s expression softened on the screen and Stiles ducked his head a little, taking the moment to finish up his second burrito.“He gets my humor.Not even you and Scott really get my humor, you just humor me.”

“How’d you meet?” Noah asked, reaching for a blood orange and using his strong fingers to peel it slowly.

“Not until you promise not to yell at me.” 

“Stiles.”

“I already got it from Caitlin and Scott, I’m not up for more yelling.”Pouting had always worked in the past, at least a little bit, and Stiles employed it ruthlessly now.

“I won’t yell.”

“I got called to his house for a minor kitchen fire last week.You promised you wouldn’t yell!”Wounded at this fresh betrayal, Stiles shoved most of the last burrito into his mouth, looking like a demented chipmunk in the little image of himself on the screen.

“I’m not yelling, I’m judiciously using my disappointed expression to convey to you how stupid you are.This is my fault, I probably should have spanked you more as a child.”Huffing out a soft, frustrated noise, Noah shook his head and picked up his phone wandering into the living room.There was comfort in the fact that nothing really had changed since he was in high school.The recliner was new, but it was the same model as the last one.There was a blanket on the back of the couch.But the big stuff, the overall picture, was identical.

“It was a small microwave fire.Already out by the time I even got there.I’m pretty sure he has one of those home security systems that calls EMS automatically.Boyd was there and said he was having a rough time, so I want in to check on him.Thought he was going to bite me when he realized I was a fire fighter.”Rubbing at his brow, Stiles watched as his dad settled into the recliner, looking like he belonged there.Noah let him be quiet for as long as he wanted to, both of them just sitting comfortably together even though they were more physically removed than either was happy with.

“I know what panic attacks look like.I didn’t want him to feel like he had to handle that alone, and everybody else was already leaving.So I left my number.”His voice sort of trailed off there and Stiles shrugged, letting his dad chew on all that.

“You never did have any self preservation instinct, did you?” his dad asked, and Stiles bit back a laugh that made an awkward smirk noise when it caught in his nose.“So why’d he call you?”

“Texted.I left my glove there.”

“Pure dumb luck.”

“Yeah.I get the feeling he wouldn’t have ever contacted me if it weren’t for that.”The thought sort of frightened him, that if it weren’t for gravity and his not noticing, Derek probably would have just been a sad memory he thought about every once in a while.“He showed up at the station to drop it off.And I asked him if he wanted to come in for chili, but he had plans with his sister, so…dateish thing.Which was officially upgraded to date.”Noah was quiet again for a while, just breathing and considering.Stiles missed this, the steadiness his dad had.The way he sat in his chair and really thought things through.Sometimes, talked them through with Stiles.Moving to Sacramento had been hard on them both, even if it was the right decision for Stiles at this point in his life.He just missed his dad sometimes.

“But you like him,” Noah started, and waited for Stiles to nod and smiled softly.“And he likes you.Sounds like it’s all working out for the best.”

“Really earning that World’s Best Dad mug today, huh?”

“I do what I can.”


	5. Evacuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Date number two. Stiles goes to Derek's house and they eat dinner. Stiles gets a phone call and something unexpected happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a little longer and more intense than I expected. Be warned there is some angst in this one. Also there's some mild spoilers for 'The Force Awakens', because asking Stiles about Star Wars is fraught.

Contrary to popular belief, Stiles didn’t eat, sleep, and breathe his job.He liked being a firefighter, there was no doubt about that.But on his days off, there wasn’t really a drive to be thinking or doing anything about work unless he absolutely had to.So a day devoid of anything to tasks, his to-do list conquered yesterday, was a recipe for either extreme napping or disaster.

He opted for extreme napping.Interspersed with a Netflix binge of _Crossing Jordan_ and some not quite friendly banter with Isaac on Words with Friends, because Isaac was the only one that would snark back without getting nasty, unlike Erica.Erica had, since high school, become the absolute queen of finding the biggest emotional bruise and pushing on it hard just to see what happened.Isaac was just sassy and snarky enough, and his time in France had only improved his vocabulary.It was fun, and after years of being vaguely adversarial about best friend stealing, Stiles liked having a friend that could keep up.

There was an hour around lunchtime reserved for Facebook stalking of certain eyebrow-blessed people, but it was pretty impossible without a last name.Stiles decided after a while that Derek seemed like the kind of person who didn’t even have a Facebook, maybe just an artsy Instagram he only updated a couple times a year with faded pictures of books and cups of tea, but inexplicably had thousands of followers.Whatever, why Facebook stalk when he he only had a couple more hours before he was seeing the real thing in person?

A little begging and a lot of flattery got him Lydia’s help to pick out something to wear, which devolved into debating if Stiles should prepare to spend the night or not.Thankfully, since he was driving and had his bug-out bag for work already in the back of the Jeep, it was mostly an intellectual exercise in doing their best to interpret Derek’s facial expressions and body language, which Stiles was unsurprised to discover Lydia was probably better at than he was, despite never actually seeing the other man.After they finally settled on a dark red button down (“Stop complaining and imagine the taking off process, Stiles.”) and some jeans, Stiles promised his undying devotion and drinks the next time she was in town, which seemed to mollify Lydia a little bit.Since he already owed her about a million drinks and half as many favors, he wasn’t super concerned that she was going to hold it against him for too long.

By the time five in the evening rolled around, Stiles was buzzing with frantic energy.His meds had been at a good balance for a long time, and the reminder of what it had felt like 15 years ago when he was constantly wired and anxious wasn’t his favorite thing in the world.But he dealt with it.Mostly by going for a quick run to burn off the excess lightning in his veins before he chugged half a liter of water and showered.It wasn’t really worth trying to do much with his hair, it was a little too long and he was definitely overdue for a trim, but six o’clock found him smelling pretty good and feeling better than he had in a while.Still nervous, but no longer struggling with it.

As a rule, Stiles didn’t drive slowly, but he also did his best to drive responsibly.Between his aging ride and the fact that he’d seen enough really gross accidents in his half decade on the job, it was prudent to drive like a normal human being instead of as if he was being chased by the hounds of hell, which…you know, had actually happened at one point.Just the once though, thank any god that had been listening at the time.

Even so, Stiles was still ten minutes early for dinner and, without anything else to do, kicked his Dad’s ass at their current game of Words with Friends, watched as Danny kicked his, in turn, and was just about to swing out of the car so he was only five minutes early when his phone buzzed with a text.

 

_You ever coming in?_

_Driveway can’t be that interesting._

 

His blush still hadn’t faded when he reached the front door and, unlike the last time he came in, knocked.There was a brief moment before Derek opened the door when Stiles wondered if this was too fast, if this was too much and he was jumping into the deep end before he should.But then there he was.Wearing a dark sweater and smiling, just a hint of a dimple in his cheeks under all that stubble and all of Stiles’s worry just disappeared.Melted into the air at the sight of Derek standing there, and the smell of what Stiles could only guess was dinner.God, he was hungry all of a sudden.

“I didn’t want to be too early.”It felt lame to offer that in the face of Derek looking soft and welcoming, but ht was all he had.Derek shrugged and motioned him in, shutting the door and throwing more locks than Stiles would have expected, given the neighborhood and the fact that they were both there.He counted four.And, confirming an earlier suspicion, spotted a high tech home security system control pad near the door, the kind that automatically called for help under certain circumstances. 

“Better early than late.I hope you like garlic,” Derek murmured as he moved past Stiles, just enough space in the hall that they could pass without touching.Stiles felt electrified with possibility, humming in the best way instead of buzzing in the worst.

“Who’s gonna say no to garlic?Idiots and people with the saddest allergy on the planet, that’s who.”Grinning when Derek snorted softly, Stiles paused before following the other man into the kitchen.“Before I forget.”And he had, almost.Had almost left the four pack of really good Belgian wheat beer in the Jeep outside, distracted by Derek’s text.Setting it on the kitchen table, he glanced at the corner that had been smoke stained and covered in white foam just under two weeks ago and was surprised to discover it was already repainted and repaired.There wasn’t a replacement microwave, but Stiles had a feeling that was more out of not having time yet than Derek deciding he didn’t need another one.“This looks great.”

“Thanks.My sister helped, which wasn’t really something I expected.”Derek’s eyes skittered over the spot when he turned his head towards it, and he focused on whatever beautiful concoction he was pulling out of the oven.

“Not much of a painter?”

“Not much of a doer.She likes supervising my idiocy.”That had Stiles snorting softly, feeling awkward without something to put in his hands (something that wasn’t Derek’s hips because it was very tempting, watching him sway in front of the stove like that).“Why don’t you open the beer?There’s church key in the drawer next to the sink.”

“I don’t know anybody besides my dad who calls it that.”Stiles grinned at the back of Derek’s head, turning and rummaging around until he found the bottle opener.“Glasses?”

“Cabinet right in front of you.”

Feeling much better with a task to complete, Stiles poured them both a beer and rinsed the empty bottles out, placing them in the small blue recycling container in the corner of the kitchen next to the trash.He liked that Derek’s kitchen was neat and easy to figure out, logical.It felt homey without being a cluttered mess, like his own apartment.

“So what’s for dinner?”Trying not to be nosy and failing spectacularly, Stiles shimmied up to Derek’s side and took a peek at what was on the oven.A moan burbled in his throat and it took everything in him to resist the urge not to plaster himself to Derek like a remora.“You made lasagna.Oh my god that smells so good.Are you telepathic or something?Because really, lasagna is in my top five foods of all time, and this looks freaking amazing.”Derek at least had the good graces to blush a little bit at the compliment.

“Well now I need to know what the other four are.”Derek cut two sizable pieces from the pan and plated them, making a soft, pleased noise when the crispy top of the cheese stretched and thinned before finally breaking.

“Pizza, because pizza is proof god loves us and wants us to be happy.Nutella, because how anything can be as delicious as chocolate and hazelnut together is beyond me.Curly fries, which I really shouldn’t have to explain.The last one isn’t even really worth mentioning because there’s no chance you can match the version my best friend’s mom makes, so I won’t torture you.”Grinning at Derek as they settled at the kitchen table, feeling surprisingly relaxed and easy for all the nerves he’d been battling earlier in the day, Stiles lifted his glass.“To second dates.”Derek touched the rim of his glass to Stiles’s, and they both drank, just a breath before Stiles set into the food like he hadn’t eaten in days.

“Now I need to know,” Derek said before pushing a forkful into his mouth, chewing far slower and neater than Stiles did. 

“Melissa makes chilaquiles that I swear are a religious experience.She reserves them for birthdays and straight As and new jobs, but sometimes I can can flash her some puppy eyes when I go home for a visit.”Knowing for a fact that his cheeks were chipmunked out, Stiles batted his eyelashes at Derek and earned himself a little blush and a sideways smile that had him falling in love all over again.Completely besotted.

“Challenge accepted.”Shaking his head a little bit, Derek blinked and when his attention came back around to Stiles he blinked a few times at Stiles’s empty plate.“You weren’t kidding about home cooked meal, were you?”Stiles shook his head eagerly and before he could do anything, Derek was up on his feet and getting him a second helping, a little larger than the first.“It’s got some spinach in there, so you aren’t completely carbo-loading.Not that I guess you need to worry about that too much.”

“Hmm?”Stiles couldn’t manage more than that with his mouth full, so he just glanced at Derek and raised his brows towards his hairline in an unspoken question.

“You’re always moving.And your work.”Derek turned back to his own food, taking his time and enjoying it.Stiles managed to get himself to slow down just a little bit, so he was actually tasting the (really good) lasagna on it’s way to his stomach.His ears went a little hot at Derek’s observation, but the other man was certainly correct that between work and his own natural inability to sit still, Stiles really was almost always in motion.Even now, his knee was bouncing under the table. 

“Yeah.That’s part of the reason I ended up on my side of the station was not wanting a desk job.After school, I thought about going into arson investigation, you know.Criminal justice degree, along with more science than I really should have done maybe.Too curious, or something.But I didn’t like the idea of showing up after the damage was already done, wanted to be more proactive than that.”Stiles watched as Derek’s eating slowed just a little bit, something different about his posture.Stiffer, less comfortable than it had been just moments before.“So how long have you lived in Sacramento?”That seemed like a safer topic of conversation.

“A couple years.Almost ten,” Derek answered after a moment or two, finally setting his fork down and looking at Stiles.“Beats the winters back east.I like being near Cora.”

“Your sister, yeah.I’m lucky Scotty came down here a few years after I did, I thought he was going to stay back home with our parents.Most of my friends ended up here, actually.I think we’re a little codependent, but not in the bad way.”The joke didn’t land as well as Stiles had wanted, but Derek at least gave him a little smile, even if it was lukewarm.“So you just get to work from home, then?That’s gotta be nice, PJ patrol any day you want.”

“Most of the time, yeah.I go out to a coffee shop a couple days a week to make sure I don’t go feral.”This smile was a little more genuine, a little toothy.Eyebrows had jokes.“I have to go in to the office now and then to meet with an author or an agent.The publisher.I end up in New York a few times a year.”Now that they were back on neutral territory, Derek relaxed again, took a long draw at his beer.Stiles did the same, leaning back and resting his free hand on his stomach, feeling fat and happy.

“You’re a great cook, Der.”The pet name came naturally, like breathing, and when Derek didn’t object, Stiles promised himself he would keep it up. “Is that what you do when you work from home, perfect some amazing meals to catch poor unsuspecting people by surprise and make them get completely twitterpated?”There was a moment of uncertainty, Derek’s eyes flitting away again, and Stiles got the distinct impression of an animal running away, avoiding injury.The other man came back quickly enough, his small smile still genuine and whatever he’d been avoiding pushed away for the time being. 

“You haven’t even tried my waffles yet,” Derek offered, shooting Stiles a teasing look that seemed a little more forward than the other man would normally by, skirting around the offer to stay the night in order to warrant getting breakfast in the morning.

“You didn’t come in and try my chili.I might be a one trick pony, but I do that trick really fucking well.”They both chuckled a little at that and Stiles glanced around the kitchen a bit, chewing on his lower lip and reaching for a topic of conversation, anything that wasn’t work.They’d sort of exhausted that one.

“So which Star Wars movie is your favorite?”Up on his feet, Derek saved them both from silence and dropped both of their plates in the sink.Stiles reached for the remaining bottles of beer and used his eyebrows to ask Derek if he wanted another.When he got a nod, Stiles popped them open and poured, following Derek when the other man padded out towards the living room he’d not even seen the first time around.The couch was plush and the TV smaller than he expected, but it looked comfortable.Lived in.There were low bookcases packed to the gills under the windows, and a Christmas cactus on one of the sills.

“That’s a really complicated question, dude.It’d be easy to say _Empire Strikes Back_ for all the right reasons, but every movie has it’s strengths and weaknesses, even the prequels.”Derek made a quiet, disbelieving noise and settled at one end of the couch, taking the beer that Stiles offered him.Stiles sort of flopped down at the other end, and it was small enough that their knees brushed without any sort of pretense or intention.It was nice.Easy.Everything with Derek was already easier than Stiles had with a date in a long time.Sure, there were conversational no-no areas, but Derek had this all pretty well marked and didn’t reply with any sort of anger or retaliation when Stiles stumbled into them.

“Let’s be real, Liam Nelson and Ewan McGregor did everything they could with the garbage in the prequels, and Darth Maul deserved a lot more than he got.Not to mention the first space queen Natalie Portman.Don’t get me started on the hairbrush thing, I’ll never stop.”Stiles paused for a moment, sipping his beer, and Derek’s brows swung up, his expression amused, curious, and relaxed.“And four through six have their strong points, absolutely.Just like her mom, Leia got less than she deserved but Carrie Fisher is the absolute center of my universe in every way.But _The Force Awakens_ gave the whole franchise a much needed kick in the ass, and I cannot explain to you how amazing Finn and Poe are, but the fans have attached themselves to Ben Solo and I’m not ok with how they did my boy Han.”The rant was clearly making Derek happy, a grin spreading wide on his face and Stiles nearly swooned at the sight of those little bunny teeth, so he kept going.“I’ve got really mixed feelings on Jyne Erso that I won’t go into now, but holy shit was _Rogue One_ an excellent movie with an incredible cast.Plus, the aforementioned gay space husbands.”When Derek gave him a blank look, Stiles gaped for a minute, then reared back and lay his hand on his chest, looking wounded.“You haven’t seen it yet?Oh, Derek, how you suffer in silence is so commendable, but you shouldn’t have to.I know what we’re doing for date number three.”

A beat, Derek’s smile going soft and secret, as Stiles realized what he’d said. 

“I mean, assuming you want a date number three.Because even if you don’t, you need to go see it.I promise, Chirrut and Baze are super worth it, they’re so gay and so in love and such cranky old men together.Bae goals, totally.”Clearing his throat a little bit and opting to shut himself up by chugging his beer a little bit too fast, immediately at a loss of what to do when he realized the glass was empty and dizzy with it.

“I do.”Dragging his eyes back to Derek’s face when the other man spoke, Stiles waited patiently for the other part of the sentence that Derek hadn’t quite finished.“Want date number three.The movie sounds good, I just…don’t like going to them by myself.”

“I know that feeling.It can be soothing, but it’s also hard, not having anybody to talk to about it when it’s over.Feels lonely,” Stiles trailed off, watching Derek nod.Setting his glass down on the coffee table, Stiles watched as Derek did the same, but only after putting some coasters down and shifting Stiles’s glass onto the cork.He scooted a little closer, and when Derek didn’t move in either direction, paused.“Can I kiss you again?I’m man enough to admit I’ve been thinking about it approximately every three seconds since you pulled out of the parking lot yesterday.”The other man went pink and glowing around the edges and Stiles couldn’t resist the urge to reach out, skim his fingertips through the dark hair at Derek’s temple. 

The instant Derek nodded, Stiles leaned in and pressed his mouth to the other’s cheek.Simple and chaste, still kinda gentle.He got the feeling Derek had gotten burned pretty badly, wasn’t out there dating a whole lot.He was tender in places that surprised Stiles sometimes, so it felt good to be gentle.Another kiss, this time to the tip of Derek’s nose, and they both chuckled softly before Stiles tilted his head and really kissed the other man.They both smelled like cheese and garlic and beer and Stiles finally gave in to the desire to run his sensitive fingertips along Derek’s cheek, towards his dimple, then backup again to feel the scruff against his skin.

It wasn’t a complicated kiss, it didn’t overwhelm him.Stiles didn’t feel breathless and his foot didn’t pop up and music didn’t swell.There were no fireworks.But kissing Derek was like eating his lasagna.It left him feeling warm and full and happy.Settled.Jumping a little when he felt Derek’s hand settle on his waist, Stiles leaned in a little closer and tipped his head forward, pressing in eagerly.Derek made a quiet noise in reply and it made Stiles melt a little bit, getting his free arm around the other’s shoulder, pulling him in just a little bit.Increasing contact by degrees.

It was his phone that finally broke them apart.He could feel it vibrating in his pocket, but ignored it well enough for a while.When it stopped, then started up again a moment later, Stiles couldn’t ignore it any longer and sighed, slowly pulling back and giving Derek one last peck before he yanked the offending device out and answered it without looking at the screen. Nobody called unless it was a big deal, everyone knew to text.

“Stilinski.”So distracted by the kissing and the warm slide of his blood through his body, Stiles almost missed the way Derek went stiff and quiet, reaching for his beer and finishing it in a few long gulps.

“Hey, kiddo.”A familiar voice on the other end of the line, soothing and maternal despite the chaos in the background.

“Melissa?What’s up?Is everything ok?”Panic spiked and Stiles scooted back, sensing Derek needed a little space and not sure if he was looking forward to the conversation they had to have once he got off the phone.

“Everything’s fine, honey.Your dad just had an…interaction with a drunk that wound up with both of them in a ditch.He came into the ER and he’s got a sprained ankle, but I wanted to let you know right away.”Someone shouted something unintelligible on Melissa’s end, and Stiles recognized his dad’s furious ‘I’m fine let me out of bed’ tone pretty easily.Blowing out a breath, he rubbed at his brow.

“Thanks.Seriously, yeah, thanks for calling.Do you guys need me to come home and do some sheriff watching?”

“No, between me and Jordan we can cover everything back here.He told me not to call because you had a date, but you would have worried even more if you found out later.Have fun, be good.”There was just a hint of mischief in her voice and Stiles couldn’t help a tired little chuckle when he hung up.Phone on the table beside his empty glass, Stiles turned his attention back to Derek and began to worry when he saw just how pale and stiff the other man had gone, looking waxy and panicked and doing his best to hide it.

“Der?”A flinch had Stiles pulling back before he’d even really lifted his hand to reach out.“Derek, are you ok?”

“You need to leave.”

“What?”

“You need to leave.”Stiles started to recognize that face, it was the same shuttered expression Derek had been wearing when Stiles had first found him in the bathtub after the fire.Derek was on the verge of having a very big problem, but he was telling Stiles to leave and that created a conflict.Stiles knew what panic attacks looked like, and he really didn’t want Derek to suffer one alone, even less so now after two pretty successful (up to this point) dates.

“Derek.I don’t think that’s a great idea.Can you tell me what’s wrong?”Trying to scoot a little closer, Stiles watched as Derek pushed to his feet and disappeared up the stairs around the corner.Unwilling to go so far as to follow the other man into a part of his home he’d never been in before, Stiles waffled for a minute or two.Wandered into the kitchen with both their glasses.Washed the dishes.Found some tin foil and covered the leftover lasagna, putting it in the fridge.At a complete loss of what to do now, Stiles sighed and pulled the magnetic pad off the fridge again to leave another note.

 

 **I’m not sure what I did, but I’m sorry for it.I never meant to make you uncomfortable or unhappy.Please text me. -** **S**

 

With no excuse to stick around and see if Derek could drag himself back out of whatever funk he’d fallen into, Stiles sighed, gave the stairs a mournful glance, and struggled with all four locks until he could get out the door.Hearing them all lock back up again before he even hit the driveway was a punch to the gut.

Ten minutes later, Stiles was back home.Headphones on, Elbow in his ears, and a can of PBR in both hands.With his first date of the night an epic failure, he decided to go for his best and longest standing FWB: getting drunk enough not to feel anything.


	6. Defensive Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is hungover grocery shopping and meets a surprising someone.
> 
> We start to get a glimpse at Derek's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6 is where things start to get rated M-ish for violence and canon complaint past character death. It's also still sort of angsty.
> 
> I went back and updated the beginning a little bit because my awesome friend immediately recognized "Duke" as a thinly veiled reference to Luke from Gilmore Girls and is writing a companion fic! Will link as soon as it is posted.

What he’d intended to be a brief fling with PBR turned out to be a several hour event.Which stretched into a day.Maybe two.Punctuated by a very brief visit to Duke’s that left him feeling even hollower than he had been before.Visits to Duke’s had always been a joyful thing, between the food and the milkshakes and the chatting with Duke’s seriously talkative wife, who Stiles would not admit under oath was the subject of several racy daydreams that also starred her disgruntled, scruffy spouse.

So it turned out that rekindling his love affair with too much beer wasn’t the greatest idea in the world.His hangover was pretty epic.At least he hadn’t had to go into work right away, and no one had pestered him about anything.Well, maybe they did, but Stiles kept his phone on silent and only glanced at it once in a while to make sure there weren’t any emergencies that needed to be dealt with.According to Melissa his dad was recovering nicely (if grumpily) and Kira sent him several pictures of Mari being adorable.So you know.The day wasn’t an entire waste of oxygen.

Sure as fuck sucked, though.

Stiles couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this…deflated.Yeah, that was a good word.Demoralized.The worst part wasn’t that Derek had so firmly and resolutely walked away from him, but more that Stiles had no idea what he’d done to warrant that.Usually when he fucked up, he as at least a little aware of how and how badly, sometimes even what he could do to fix it.But like this?Radio silence from Derek all day and no clue what he’d said that had pushed him so hard and so fast?Stiles was floundering.

By the time late afternoon rolled around, he hauled himself out of his bed of misery and forced himself into the Jeep.The fridge was empty and he was down to a single lonely frozen tofu burrito, plus he couldn’t afford to GrubHub something for the third time that month, not until the next paycheck cleared, at least.

Trader Joe's had long been Stiles’s happy place, full of food and nice people and flowers and Hawaiian shirts.Cart already full of produce (mostly potatoes, but that wasn’t his fault) and snacks and juice, he was contemplating if he should buy two or three packages of hash browns when he felt the very distinct and terrifyingly recognizable sensation of someone trying to set fire to him with their eyeballs.It was easy enough to ignore for a little while as he finally decided on three and moved on to gnocchi and risotto, both of which were staples in his non-burrito diet.Anything he could microwave was a win, really.He kept on ignoring it as he got some frozen fish and more vegetables that he knew would get freezer burn in the back behind the ice cream he was shoving into his car without thinking, intent on getting away from whoever hated him so much that they were about to ignite the back of his head.He had to loop back around to get some ground turkey, which took him right past the peanut butter and the jars of the Trader Joe's brand chocolate hazelnut spread.

He could bake Derek cupcakes.Nutella cupcakes.Cupcakes weren’t that hard, right?And they were good, universal apology food.Nobody hated cupcakes.But Stiles didn’t have one of those tins to cook muffins in and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t go so hot on a twenty year old cookie sheet he’d stolen from his dad when he moved out.Maybe cookies, then.Even just pulling his phone out to look up a recipe for Nutella cookies had Stiles realizing that he would need sugar and butter and probably some sort of spices or something and he was suddenly struck with just how futile all of this was.He couldn’t bake for crap, he could barely cook something edible to fuel himself through work, besides his chili, and leaving a pile of burnt Nutella cookies on Derek’s doorsteps like the saddest turds in the world was not going to win him any apology points.

If Derek even wanted to see him again.Which wasn’t likely.

With tears pushing at the back of his eyes, Stiles turned, a jar of chocolate hazelnut spread still in his hand, and nearly crashed into a short, angry woman beside him.When he muttered an apology, which seemed like it was sort of his thing right now, she lay a hand in the middle of his chest and made a noise that was somewhere between a pissed off dog and a wasp.

“I’m not sure what he sees in you, crying in the middle of the grocery store.”Watching her sneer at him didn’t do anything to improve his mood, so Stiles chalked her up to local color and tried to step around her.“Where do you think you’re going, Stilinski?I’ve got some questions for you.”

It was the eyebrows that finally clued him in.Hers weren’t nearly as impressive as Derek's, but they were doing the complicated dance that his did when he was thinking, only a lot more aggressive.

“Cora, right?Look, your brother made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to see me again, so I’m not sure what kind of questions you could want to ask me.”Trying to push past her again, Stiles grunted when she grabbed the edge of his cart, bringing him to a complete stop combined with the hand on his chest.

“I don’t care what you do with the rest of your pathetic life, I’m only interested in why you went after him in the first place.”That, finally, got anger boiling in his belly, the idea that he had been chasing Derek or wishing him harm.

“Look, I just got called to a scene, ok?I showed up, and when I heard he might be having a panic attack I wanted to help.I left him my number in case he needed a friend.”

“Yeah, so he said.And your glove just happened to fall out of your pocket and you invited him to get lunch, which turned into making out in the parking lot of his favorite diner.What. Do. You. Want?”So the growling thing was definitely a family trait.There was no way that wasn’t genetic.He wondered if Derek’s other sister could do that, too.

“I just wanted him to not be alone and upset, dammit.”Squirming away from her hand and yanking his cart free finally, Stiles pulled a face like he’d tasted milk a week past the expiration date and tried one last time to move around her.“I dunno what fucked up world the two of you grew up in, but that’s just called being nice to the rest of us.”

“Yeah, like you wouldn’t know.”Her snort was dry and her expression flat as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Contrary to everything the X-Men ever made me hope for, I’m not a psychic, so no, I don’t know.”Fuck it, his ice cream was going to melt.Backing up and wheeling around into the frozen aisle again, Stiles swapped the container in his cart out for a new one, Cora hot on his heels.

“Are you seriously trying to convince me that Sheriff Stilinski’s kid had no idea that he was swooping in to save Derek Hale from yet another fire?I’m not that stupid, and I’m insulted that you think I am.”She was leaning into her hip now, glaring daggers at him and refusing to budge for the yummy mummy and her toddler that were just trying to get to the frozen pearl onions.Turning to the other woman, Cora somehow managed to take up even more space and spat out, “Go around, bitch.”

Stiles, for his part, was rooted to the spot.Staring, slack-jawed at her.There’d been a small inkling, something in the back of his head when he’d first seen Derek sitting there in the tub.A glimmer of recognition.He’d chalked it up to instant attraction and seeing what a panic attack looked like in someone else, the waxy skin and the distant eyes that he’d seen in the mirror one too many times.But Derek Hale?Fuck.How had he not put those all together?He was the sheriff’s kid, for fuck’s sake, he was the investigator that had kept all of his friends alive despite their best efforts in the years after Scott had gotten bit by…Peter.Derek’s dead uncle.A whole lot of things were clicking into place all at once and Stiles could feel the blood rushing to his face and limbs, everything inside him screaming that he had to get the fuck out of there, run straight to Derek, explain that he hadn’t known.

Instead, he finally got his cart past Cora Hale, who up until the moment the Hale family home had caught fire had been in Stiles’s class.Fifth grade.Fuck, he was such an idiot.She was eyeing him with the same amount of distrust as she had earlier, but the anger had faded into something else.Curiosity, maybe, with just a little confusion.

“You really didn’t know?”When he went to stand in line behind the yummy mummy, who turned briefly to flick Cora off and got ignored for her trouble.

“You might not be that stupid, but apparently I am.I had no clue.I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”They stood in silence or a while, and Stiles began to bag his groceries while a very nervous looking cashier watched Cora like he was about to get bitten.Given the look on her face, Stiles wasn’t going to put it past her.

“This isn’t the reaction I was expecting.” 

“Aren’t you going to help?”They were on the third bag, and Stiles was sort of drowning in a pile of frozen vegetables and the eggs looked like they were in danger.Distantly, he realized that this was going to be just as much of a bitch to get up to his apartment, even more so than his laundry had been.It was a little like he was watching himself pack up his purchases, distant from his body and removed from the way his world was sort of collapsing in on itself at the moment.

“Aren’t you going to go run off to my brother and make some sort of grand romantic gesture?”

“Is that the appropriate response to finding out the guy you like is actually from your hometown, one of the only survivors of a really horrific crime that shaped every moment of your life and emotionally scarred your father so badly he nearly became an alcoholic?”The cashier tried to hustle them towards the door with a friendly little wave, and Cora at least had the good graces to look a little sorry, though not much.“I don’t feel like there _is_ an appropriate response here.”

They were silent again as Stiles pushed his cart out to the Jeep and loaded it up.Silent as he got the cart into it’s metal corral.Silent as he wandered back over to the driver’s side and paused, finally turning to look at her again.Cora still looked furious, but Stiles was starting to get the feeling that was a permanent state, rather than something that had to do with him, specifically.

“I’m sorry.About…your family.”It felt lame, and too small for what was going on in his chest, the hollow spot between his lungs.“I really do like him.”It was strange, the way the words pushed at his mouth, forcing their way out, like he had to explain.Like he had to make her understand that this was real for him.Not that it mattered, if Derek didn’t want this.Didn’t want him.That kinda made the whole exercise a moot point.

“If you hurt him, I’m going to rip your throat out.With my teeth.”She said it casually, like she was asking him what time it was, and snapped her sharp, white incisors at him for good measure.That, at least, felt kind of familiar, and something that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t been fearful caught in his mouth.

“Noted.”

It was awkward, parting ways now.She didn’t have an excuse for violence and Stiles felt wrung out, shaken; they both moved like half-empty balloons, all wrinkled and swaying in the slightest breeze.Cora slipped over to a Mini Cooper that didn’t quite match her ferociousness and Stiles got into the Jeep.He had to resist the urge to give her a friendly wave at the red light, like they were just former classmates who’d run into each other in the grocery store. They both pulled off the line and went their separate ways, and he did his best to drive home like nothing had changed.Like the world hadn’t tilted on it’s axis and started running backwards without warning.

He didn’t even realize he was in Derek’s driveway until he’d been sitting there for a couple minutes.The front door was painted this soft gray-green that made Stiles think of spring evenings and the woods outside his dad’s backyard and Derek’s eyes.The ice cream was going to be a serious lost cause at this point, but it felt like there was something more important he had to be doing than saving strawberry mochi from melting into puddles that would still be delicious but a lot messier than usual.

Another couple minutes to psych himself up to get out of the Jeep.It would have been easier to text Derek.To drop a note into his mailbox or even just let Cora sort it out.But even now, even knowing what he did, maybe especially knowing, Stiles had to at least take the chance.It was worth it, for lasagna kisses and bunny teeth.

Knocking on Derek’s front door wasn’t the bravest thing he’d ever done.That involved some very scary werewolves and some very nasty people trying to kill his best friends.But it was easily in the top five.Right after asking Lydia Martin to be his date for senior prom and a couple steps above coming out to his friends.It was almost a relief when the door didn’t open.

But he knocked again.And again.After the first five minutes, retreated to the Jeep and got the mochi, eating each one in a single bite and wiping dribbles of nearly liquid strawberry ice cream of his chin.After almost thirty minutes of waiting on Derek’s stoop and wondering what he should eat next out to save it from going bad in his back seat, Stiles finally heard the soft sound of locks being thrown.It took another couple minutes for the door to finally open.And just as the sun was starting to dip behind the horizon, Derek came out and stood beside him.Waited just a heartbeat too long, then sat down.They weren’t touching, but he could feel the heat of Derek there beside him, just scant inches away.When he finally got up the courage to turn and look, something inside Stiles melted a little bit.Derek was wearing that same faded NYU shirt as he had when working out, his hair was soft and fluffy and pushed to one side like he’d been laying down for too long.There were pillow creases on his cheek and his eyes were red.It took everything inside him not to reach out and touch, to do his best to comfort Derek, because that wasn’t his place.Not yet.Maybe not ever.

“I don’t want to start over.”Even to his own ears, Stiles’s voice sounded rough and raw.But he had to clear that up first.“I”m Stiles Stilinski.”He stuck out his right hand, watching Derek as patiently as he could and doing his best not to freak out.After way too many moments of silence, after it got brittle and scary and sort of threatening, long after Stiles would have stood up and run off screaming in the other direction if it had been anybody but Derek sitting there beside him, the other man lifted his own hand and slid it into Stiles’s for a firm shake.

“Derek Hale.It’s nice to see you again, Stiles.”

Maybe, just maybe, this was going to be ok.


End file.
